“You see, then we could settle down and raise cows. We could build up the range again. They ain’t going to be so brash about things when they know they’s a real man in charge of Del Sol. But a orphant is easy picking for a man like Rudabaugh and his gang of carpetbagging thieves.” “You mean Rudabaugh?” “I shore do. In Austin, we don’t know what’s going on. In office and out, there’s a new gang in there. They’re organized fer to steal this here whole state, lock, stock and barrel. They don’t stop at nothing. They allow the war ain’t never done; that us Texans ain’t never surrendered; that Lee’s still a enemy; and that all this state is fair picking fer men that wasn’t never borned nor raised in Texas, orphants and all. They got wide idees, yes. But they ain’t idees that was borned in Texas, ma’am.” “And are we helpless, Jim?” “Damn nigh it, ma’am.” “But surely we could raise two or three thousand head, of some sort, to drive north this spring. Leave them the empty house, Jim! Leave them the Del Sol round pen without a horse in it! Leave them our range—empty! But by the Lord——” She smote fist in palm, walked. Her foreman’s fighting blood kindled at the flame of the old courage that had brought families into this wilderness. “Yes, by the Lord! Taisie, child, ef ever we do get on our feet, us Texans, we’ll line up against them people and we’ll see it through!” “Then we’ll drive, Jim?” “Yes, we’ll drive! Ef it takes the last hoof, we’ll drive this spring, come grass. I don’t know nothing about the country; I never driv a herd so fur, and no one else never has. But ef you’ll let us do our very best, we’ll bust north inside of thirty days!” He caught both her long brown hands in his own gnarled and crooked ones, his stubbled face grave, his gray eyes troubled; a figure not impressive in his broken boots, his torn checked trousers, but with a sincerity proved these years since his boyhood under this girl’s father. “You’ll take it fair, child, ef we do the best we can fer you! You’ll never holler?” “You know I never will, Jim. And you know I’ll go along and I’ll go through.” “Lord help you, Miss Taisie! And Lord help us too! There’s been times when my job seemed a heap easier than what it does right now!” * * * * * AUTHOR’S NOTE.—There is no Gregg, no Parkman, no Chittenden for the lost and forgotten cattle trail. Although almost as important as the east-and-west railroads in the early development of the trans-Missouri, it has no map, no monument, no history, almost no formulated condition. There is a comprehensive literature covering our westbound expansion, but of the great north-and-south pastoral road almost the contrary must be said, such is the paucity of titles.